Rigpa wrote:Just watched a video interview with production designer Jack Fisk about Mulholland Dr. At the very end, he's talking about how hands-on Lynch is on the set. He mentions arriving on the set for The Straight Story to find Lynch sweeping the street. He says that at one point in his life Lynch was a "professional sweeper" and that he's really good at it! Sweeping scene explained?!

Continuing the point I've noted on my postmortem rewatch about how various Parts seem to have their own internal logic and themes: this one is almost aggressively a "traditional" sequel/continuation in many scenes, with name-drops for Annie, Harold, the season 1 shooting cliffhanger, the bank explosion, even a freeze-frame reference to Nancy, of all people! As glad as I am that S3 stubbornly insisted on being its own odd thing instead of an 'X Files'-style "revival," there is undeniably a charm to this approach, and I can understand the fans who were upset that the series didn't do more of this kind of thing.

What can we glean about the Woodsmen from their appearances? They seem to be on Mr. C/Bob's side (or, if Mr. C and Bob are NOT exactly on the same side -- a possibility -- they're on Mr. C's side, as they work to keep Bob inside him, which we know from Part 5 is something Mr. C wants). They seem linked to the death of Garland and whatever happened in "the Zone," as a Woodsman appears in the cell next to Bill in Part 2, in the morgue with Garland's body here, and of course one of them eventually kills Bill. There is some evidence linking Mr. C to what happened in the Zone as well (Mr. C seems disturbed in Part 2 that "Phillip" knows about his meeting with Garland). But it seems extremely unlikely that Mr. C would plant Dougie's ring...he would know that the FBI has some knowledge of tulpas, and the last thing he would want is to lead them to Dougie before his hitmen could take Dougie out. So maybe Mr. C/the Woodsman killed Briggs, but some other Lodge entity snuck the ring inside of Garland right under Mr. C's nose?

Or, better yet...Mike came to Garland in a dream the night before (wherever Garland was "hibernating") and gave him the ring. Garland, knowing his time had come but that the ring could be the salvation of good Coop and the downfall of Mr. C, swallowed the ring before going to meet his fate. I like this, because it gives Garland agency and a heroic end.

Sorry, I'm rambling.

Speaking of rings...we now know a prison guard gave Ray the Owl Cave ring. Presumably this is the guard we see at the far end of the hallway when Ray appears. Intriguingly, the guard only ever appears with a bright flashlight-burst obscuring his/her form almost completely.

Little moments I love: Frank's two-fingered chicken-peck typing, Dougie writing on/poking his blotter with the pen, Beymer's physicality when he palms the room key (this feels SO quintessentially Ben), Tammy suddenly popping into frame on the plane (I have to say, I've always been a Tammy/Bell supporter, but I really love her on this rewatch).

Ben describing Laura Palmer as a "long story" is a massive understatement. I have to imagine -- whether L/F/Beymer intended it or not -- that Ben is forced to remember in that moment the fact that he had sex with a high school student his daughter's age, and the effect that had on his wife and Audrey (whatever is going on with her). I imagine that plays a big part in Ben resisting the urge to ruin Beverly's marriage.

We all suspected that Mr. C raped Diane after this Part aired, but rewatching it knowing that for a fact makes Kyle's performance all the creepier. He seems not only unrepentant but perhaps unaware that his actions were even wrong. He asks her if she's mad at him and agrees with her that he'll never forget that night, as if they're simply former lovers who had a falling-out. Sociopathic and chilling.

Gordon tells Diane that whatever is going on with Cooper has to do with something she knows about. This obviously references Lois Duffy/tulpas. But I wonder if Gordon realizes yet that Diane herself is a tulpa and is being sly? I doubt it, but it's a fun extra level to the line whether he intends it or not.

My new most-desired prequel is a show about Diane and Janey-E's mother. The woman who produced those two spitfires had to really be something.

As a lifelong Marx Bros. fan, I have to give a shoutout to Doc Hayward's 'Animal Crackers' quotation (although the use of trout is less funny than the original elephant). There's not a doubt in my mind that this line and the Chico reference in Part 17 were Frost, given his professed love for them, and I have to assume that Warren introduced Mark to the Marxes when he was a kid. I find it very sweet that Mark gave his dad this line (and I adore the way Forster plays it: he clearly already knows the punchline and is indulging Will to some extent, but also is genuinely amused by Will's joy and earnestness).

I really wonder about the Hayward family. Will is seemingly having breakfast alone by the stream in Middlebury, Vt. I wonder if he's still with Eileen.

The scene of Beverly's home life is sure odd. I guess DKL just wanted to give Judd something more meaty to play (and she does great work), but it's just not an interesting scene and it never pays off.

I was on the fence about the sweeping initially, feeling that DKL might have finally taken his captive-audience excruciating-pacing shtick (which I generally love -- see: shovels) too far. However, I like it more and more. Another user pointed out that Jack Fisk discusses DKL having been a street sweeper at one point in the MD documentary, and I can just imagine the enthusiasm with which DKL directed the actor. On this rewatch, it also resonated with me due to my old high school job as a movie theater usher. I wonder if this crossed DKL's mind at all...using sweeping as a break in the action, to me, feels very much like the moments in a movie theater that no one thinks about, when one story has ended and the next has yet to begin. This is probably just a personal association, but I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that it was on DKL's mind on some level.

The Renaults having owned the Roadhouse for 57 years seemingly retcons Jake Morrissey out of existence (the owner of the Roadhouse and the Bookhouse in TSDoLP and the Pilot script/deleted scenes). Too bad...he was one of my favorite non-characters/trivia questions.

This is one of those Parts that feels like law enforcement overload. I enjoyed most of it a lot, but I was so relieved to enter Dougie's more human everyday world -- ironically flagged by an establishing shot of the sheriff/'FBI Story' statue! And even there, we get the Fuscos and Ike the Spike.

Mr. Reindeer wrote:Continuing the point I've noted on my postmortem rewatch about how various Parts seem to have their own internal logic and themes: this one is almost aggressively a "traditional" sequel/continuation in many scenes, with name-drops for Annie, Harold, the season 1 shooting cliffhanger, the bank explosion, even a freeze-frame reference to Nancy, of all people! As glad as I am that S3 stubbornly insisted on being its own odd thing instead of an 'X Files'-style "revival," there is undeniably a charm to this approach, and I can understand the fans who were upset that the series didn't do more of this kind of thing.

This is one of those Parts that feels like law enforcement overload. I enjoyed most of it a lot, but I was so relieved to enter Dougie's more human everyday world -- ironically flagged by an establishing shot of the sheriff/'FBI Story' statue! And even there, we get the Fuscos and Ike the Spike.

this is a good point.. the way the episodes are edited and certain scenes are edited in favor of their thematical value over their chronological order. that way it feels very much like a series, unlike the decision to almost completely skip cliffhangers and at times even cutting scenes between episodes (as 5 to 6 for example). it's beautiful to watch multiple episodes in a row now that we are able to rewatch however.. Mr. Reindeer, as i notice you are rewatching the episodes right now i would like to recommend watching episode 11 and episode 13 in tandem, followed by 12 and 14. there was some talk in the episodes thread back when these had aired that suggested that there's really nothing in the stories that would prevent that from working.. the only thing of impact that you loses are, imo, the introduction of Audrey being switched which worked so FANTASTIC in ep. 12 with all that silent build up, but on the other hand going from Cooper's "Heartbreaking" / Cherry pie scene right to the office scene with the Mitchum's, the 7 heaven scene, etc. really works wonders imo. likewise ep. 12 and 14 really builds off each other.. would be interesting to hear your opinion on that.

claaa7 wrote:Mr. Reindeer, as i notice you are rewatching the episodes right now i would like to recommend watching episode 11 and episode 13 in tandem, followed by 12 and 14. there was some talk in the episodes thread back when these had aired that suggested that there's really nothing in the stories that would prevent that from working.. the only thing of impact that you loses are, imo, the introduction of Audrey being switched which worked so FANTASTIC in ep. 12 with all that silent build up, but on the other hand going from Cooper's "Heartbreaking" / Cherry pie scene right to the office scene with the Mitchum's, the 7 heaven scene, etc. really works wonders imo. likewise ep. 12 and 14 really builds off each other.. would be interesting to hear your opinion on that.

I do recall that discussion, and it makes sense. Also, DKL talking about mixing up the film reels. I guess we all have a slightly better idea what he meant now. I'll definitely give it a shot, maybe not on this rewatch (my first revisitation after having seen it all), but definitely on one of my many future ones!

I recall people speculating that the patrons in the Double R change when Bing bursts in looking for Billy. It’s not quite that simple, though...there are three different configurations: (1) the first shot; (2) the second and third shots (the “Bing” shots), which feature new patrons, but also show several patrons from the first shot in different positions (as well as a couple in relatively similar positions — i.e., the woman in the purple coat and the woman in the beret, who seem to have switched seats but are otherwise in the same location); and (3) the “end credits” shot, which is a hodgepodge, depicting some new configurations of previously seen patrons, some patrons back in their positions from either Configuration 1 or 2, and some brand new patrons. Honestly, it just seems like DKL had people moving around. Realistically, given the way this series played around with time, it is entirely possible that some time lapsed in-world between Shots 1 and 2 and Shots 3 and 4 (note how Heidi jumps around). The only shots that are pretty concretely linear are Shots 2 and 3 (with Bing in the doorway), and those are the only shots where the configuration of patrons is entirely consistent.

Also note that Riley Lynch has a beard, unlike his appearance as a band member of Trouble, only a couple of days earlier in-show. Does this indicate that Bing is a separate character from the in-show “Riley Lynch”?

Maybe, I emphasise maybe, Billy is the cause of all these logical impossibilities concerning the chaos created in the neat order of the local fabrics of space-time. A similar phenomenon can be seen at the golden portal where Naido was found and where Andy vanished from existence, into that vortex. Before, and after, his disappearance, the sequence of the four men gets shuffled without any cause; a hiccup of the x,y,z and t coordinates of our 4D space-time continuum. Einstein used a shortcut called "mu" for those four.

Xavi wrote:Maybe, I emphasise maybe, Billy is the cause of all these logical impossibilities concerning the chaos created in the neat order of the local fabrics of space-time. A similar phenomenon can be seen at the golden portal where Naido was found and where Andy vanished from existence, into that vortex. Before, and after, his disappearance, the sequence of the four men gets shuffled without any cause; a hiccup of the x,y,z and t coordinates of our 4D space-time continuum. Einstein used a shortcut called "mu" for those four.

Also worth noting the way time skips back and forth in the mauve room in Part 3. A similar phenomenon is seen in Part 8 with the Woodsmen — both when they initially approach Mr. C’s corpse and when they pace around the convenience store. Individual actors/characters jump around in time and space in extremely choppy fashion in both instances. The diner scenes might be a more prolonged/drawn-out version of the same phenomenon.

And I do think there is undeniably something going on with “Billy,” in terms of the breakdown of reality, although I still have no idea what it means. But I do want to emphasize that the second confirguration of diner patrons occurrs several seconds before Bing bursts in, so Bing’s query does not trigger the change.

All I know is that the Woodsmen are creatures that exist in a completely different dimension, that's why they look otherworldly, and that's why they can appear out of and dissolve into nothingness as the light without a cause suddenly fades into some sort of twilight zone. I also pretend to understand that the mauve world is a realm where the "non-existent" tend to abide, whereas Billy and the fabulous four set their footprints in our familiar reality.

Xavi wrote:All I know is that the Woodsmen are creatures that exist in a completely different dimension, that's why they look otherworldly, and that's why they can appear out of and dissolve into nothingness as the light without a cause suddenly fades into some sort of twilight zone. I also pretend to understand that the mauve world is a realm where the "non-existent" tend to abide, whereas Billy and the fabulous four set their footprints in our familiar reality.

I think "The Secret History of Twin Peaks" hints at a different origin for the woodsmen. I think they were real human beings aligned with Jack Parsons that got somwhat incinerated during the Trinity explosion, while they were performing their ritual at the Convenience store. Now they exist somewhere inbetween worlds.

Xavi wrote:All I know is that the Woodsmen are creatures that exist in a completely different dimension, that's why they look otherworldly, and that's why they can appear out of and dissolve into nothingness as the light without a cause suddenly fades into some sort of twilight zone. I also pretend to understand that the mauve world is a realm where the "non-existent" tend to abide, whereas Billy and the fabulous four set their footprints in our familiar reality.

I think "The Secret History of Twin Peaks" hints at a different origin for the woodsmen. I think they were real human beings aligned with Jack Parsons that got somwhat incinerated during the Trinity explosion, while they were performing their ritual at the Convenience store. Now they exist somewhere inbetween worlds.